Starman (20 page)

Patiently the soldiers carried out their assignments, hoping it wouldn’t be much longer until the two people in the photographs they’d been handed put in an appearance.

The cook gave his passenger a farewell half-salute. The starman returned the gesture in kind, watched as the Chevy worked its way up the side road. Then he turned and started walking down the shoulder toward the distant line of vehicles.

Shermin had strolled over to the roadblock. Surveying the travelers waiting to get through, he noted the presence of backpackers and day hikers roaming around and decided he’d better comment on it.

“Better get these pedestrians in line. Some of them are slipping around the end and ignoring the checkpoint.”

“Yes sir.” The lieutenant looked meaningfully at his first sergeant, a career man who wanted nothing more than to be back in the NCO club on the base and instead found himself stuck out here on the highway in the middle of a hot afternoon. “You heard the man.”

“Right, sir.” Grumbling under his breath the older man turned and began passing the word to his men. “All right, let’s shape it up here!” He called over a couple of hikers, envying them their cool shorts and short-sleeved shirts. “You folks have to go through the checkpoint just like everybody else. Come on now, I’m not enjoying this any more than you are—pay attention, soldier, and keep ’em in line, will you? All you pedestrians there, line up on the right.” He gave one man who might have been partly deaf a gentle push back toward the processional.

Near the rear of the line the starman obediently took his place. Up ahead, the lieutenant and the sergeant were working their way toward him, checking faces and papers as they came.

The young man slowed. Heat rose in ripples from the hood of his car. “I guess we missed him. Some kind of roadblock up ahead. I’d better stop here—my rear tires aren’t standard and the cops can make trouble for you when they’re feeling antsy. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. You did your—oh!” She was staring at the line of people on foot. “Oh no.”

“What, where?” asked her champion, peering over the wheel and trying to see what had upset her.

She gestured with a wavering finger. “That’s him up ahead, in that line! They’ll find him.”

“Like hell they will,” said the young man huskily. He thromped the accelerator and the oversized engine roared.

By this time the starman had grasped the purpose behind the roadblock. The attitudes displayed by the disgruntled drivers nearby and by the people in front of and behind him indicated it was not a normal, everyday occurrence. It had been set up for a special reason.

He saw that the men in uniform who were working their way down the line toward him were carefully inspecting each person before allowing them to continue on their way. He knew that he had to get out of the line before they reached him, but he was surrounded on all sides by armed humans. If he suddenly left and began to run they’d capture him for sure.

A noise made him turn. Something loud and mechanical was coming toward the line at high speed. Everyone turned to look. Some broke and ran as the car came barreling down the shoulder of the Interstate straight toward them.

It executed a sharp U-turn and kicked up a huge cloud of dust, fishtailing through the dirt and weeds. The lieutenant gaped at it like everyone else, then turned to yell an order. As he inhaled, his mouth filled with dust.

In the middle of the brown cloud a door opened. Hands reached out and pulled the gasping, choking starman into the front seat. He wiped his eyes, blinked.

“Jennyhayden!”

“Let’s move it, Dave!”

“Roger, wilco, Commander!” Grinning at both of them the young man gunned the engine. The car tore around the outside of the road-block at high speed, kicking up a huge roostertail of dust in its wake. Behind it there was a lot of dirt, cursing, and confusion as the troops tried to get organized. In the swirling dust no one could locate Mark Shermin.

“My God,” Jenny muttered, staring at the starman as the car pulled back onto the concrete with a loud screech, “what are you doing here?”

“I hitched a ride. With a cook.”

She shook her head. “Ask a silly question.”

“It is good to see you.”

“You too.” She turned to speak to the driver. “This isn’t going to work, Dave. They’ll be on top of us any minute now.”

“No way. You should’ve seen ’em when we pulled out. They’re all running around bumping into each other. Besides, you think I can’t outrun a lousy jeep?” He accelerated, staring over the wheel like a man possessed.

“What if they send a couple of helicopters after us?”

“Oh.” He looked crestfallen.“I didn’t think of that.” He slowed, looked over at her. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Give me a minute to think.” After a pause she nodded toward the side of the road. “Pull over and let us out.”

He sighed. “You’re the boss, lady”

The car rumbled to a stop and Jenny and the starman got out. She leaned back in and flashed her sexiest smile. “Thanks for everything, Dave. You really helped us out of a tight spot.”

“My pleasure. You sure I can’t take you any farther?”

“No. We’ve got to try something else. You go on ahead. Maybe they’ll follow you. I don’t want you to get into trouble, so if they catch you tell them we forced you to drive us.”

“Gotcha.” She stepped back and watched as the car peeled out, leaving rubber on the concrete. Taking the starman’s hand Jenny led him across the highway toward the eastbound lane. Now it was the wind and not a car that was kicking up dust.

A station wagon came toward them, swerved around at the last instant. The driver leaned on his horn and shouted back at them. “Rent a room!”

“Asshole!”

Jenny gaped at the starman. “Where’d you learn that?”

“The cook.”

“Great education you’re getting.” She stared down the deserted highway. “We gotta get out of here.”

An old pickup came chuffing along. Jenny stepped out and waved. It slowed down, pulled over next to them. She leaned toward the open window on the passenger side and spoke hopefully. A couple of kids, brown as coffee beans, stared back at her out of wide dark eyes.

“Please, mister, we need a lift real bad. Which way you going?”

The driver was thin, muscular, and almost as dark as the children. His slim mustache was damp with sweat. “Durango,
señora.”

“That’d be swell.”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You can ride in back, if you don’t mind some company.”

She smiled up at him. “Thanks.” They went around to the rear of the truck and she helped the starman climb over the tailgate. As they pulled back out onto the road she took stock of their fellow passengers. There was a young woman with a baby in her arms and an old man. She tried not to stare. There weren’t a lot of Hispanics in rural Wisconsin.

“We are going the right way?” the starman asked her.

She nodded, leaned back against the wheel well. “The guy who got us past the roadblock told me there’s a railroad down here that runs almost due south, straight through Winslow. If we can hop a freight it’ll take us right into town. From there we can hitch to where you have to go.”

The starman was staring at her intently. Not that he had become an expert on the full range of human emotions as conveyed by vocal inflection, but he was certain her tone was different than he remembered it. Short and strident.

“You sound different. I have done something wrong?”

“Oh no, nothing at all. What makes you think that?” she said sourly. “I wake up alone inside half a trailer in the middle of nowhere and you’re gone. Disappeared, took off, without leaving a note or anything. I thought we were friends.”

“You are right. We are friends. I did it to help you. To be with me is not good for your health. I do not want to see you hurt, Jennyhayden, and because of me you might have died.”

“Friends don’t run out on each other like that, no matter what the reason. At least you could’ve said good-bye.”

“ ‘Good-bye?’ ”

“You don’t say good-bye up there?”

“Teach me this.”

“What’s to teach?” She shrugged. “Good-bye is farewell. It’s—hell, I don’t know. It’s a custom, a politeness. If you say it a certain way it means that, well, it’s a way of telling somebody you like that you—wish them well. That you hope . . .”

A loud squalling interrupted her as the baby in the young woman’s arms woke up. The mother also came to life, tried to quiet the infant while looking apologetically over at the starman and Jenny.

“Her tooth comin’ in. You know.” She gestured at her own mouth.
“Diente.”
She rocked the baby in her arms.
“Pobrecita,
The long ride is hard on her.”

“Can I hold her for a while? You could get some rest.”

“No.
Gracias,
but it is okay. There is nothing anyone can do. We have no medicine.” She smiled bravely. “I do not like to see her cry, but it will stop soon. The hurt will go away.” As she finished the infant let out another unhappy wail.

Smiling reassuringly at the mother, the starman leaned forward. “Excuse me, please.”

“You doctor?” She eyed him disbelievingly.

“No, but I can help.” The young woman looked at Jenny, who nodded.

He put gentle fingers on the baby’s face, ran them across the cheeks and over the chin, barely skimming the lips. The crying turned into a gurgling sound, gave way to silence as the baby stared up at him out of wide, guileless eyes.

The old man said something for the first time. It was in Spanish and Jenny couldn’t understand the words, but she could imagine what he was talking about. As the starman sat back the mother’s expression shifted between wonderment and wariness.

The sky rumbled. Distant thunder promised forthcoming rain. Jenny glanced upward. “Storm coming in.”

“Aquí, aquí,”
muttered the old man, suddenly moving around. He started to unfurl a pile of thick canvas. Jenny leaned over to help him.

By that afternoon the temporary roof had been set in place over the pickup’s bed. Thick clouds had accumulated threateningly overhead, but so far only a few drops had fallen.

The old man and the woman lay together beneath an old army blanket, resting peacefully. Jenny wondered if he was her father, or perhaps the father of the man driving the truck. Or maybe he was just a hitchhiker like themselves. Appearances could be deceiving.

Of all people she ought to know about that.

She held the baby in her arms, rocking it gently and cooing to it as it slept. The mother had finally agreed to hand the child over so she could get some rest herself. The baby moved slightly in its warm blanket, tiny hands reaching instinctively. Jenny cuddled it close, murmuring softly to it.

“Probrecita.”

“A new person is called a
probrecita
?”

She smiled across at him. The two of them were huddled together beneath another army blanket and he was very close to her. She no longer minded the closeness, no longer found the proximity disturbing.

“Only if they’re Spanish and have a toothache. Otherwise they’re called babies.”

“Can anyone have babies?”

“Just girls.”

“I did not mean that. I meant, any female. I understand your reproductive process. That information was presented clearly on the device that helped us to find your world.”

“You said ‘your’ reproductive process. You don’t have babies?”

“Not in the same sense as you. We are very long-lived, Jennyhayden, and much content with ourselves. The creation of a new person is a serious matter among us and is not taken lightly.”

“Same way with us. Well, most of the time, anyway.”

“You have a baby?”

“No. No babies. No dogs, no cats, no canary birds.”

“You were not married long enough?”

“No, it’s more than that. Scott knew. I told him right away, as soon as we started getting serious. He understood. It didn’t matter to him.” She tried to smile and failed. “Just turned out I couldn’t. Everybody can’t do something. I was just one of those lucky ladies who can’t . . .”

A loud crack of thunder interrupted her, went rolling off to the north. Lightning painted the underside of a cloud with light. Then the cloud and its companions opened up and the travelers found themselves journeying onward beneath a waterfall.

It rained all the way to Gallup, in northwestern New Mexico. Surprisingly, the old canvas kept the majority of it off, so they were almost dry when the pickup pulled in next to the railroad siding.

The old man raised the back flap and peered out. No yard men in sight. Probably all sitting in their shack drinking hot coffee, he thought. The long lines of boxcars trailed back into the rain, like ghosts.

There was a clash of couplings as the freight train lurched forward in front of him. He turned and waved into the darkness beneath the canvas.
“Vamanos,
hurry up! The train going west is moving. Go quickly now.”

Jenny and the starman climbed over the tailgate and stepped down into shallow mud. She led him toward the slowly accelerating train, searching the cars. The young mother followed behind while the old man stayed in the back of the truck with the child.

“Here!” Jenny indicated a boxcar whose door was slightly ajar. The starman grabbed it and shoved it aside, gave her a hand up and then followed.

Once they were safely aboard, the young woman tossed a bundle of material at them. “Here, a blanket. It’s dry.” As the train continued to pick up speed she began to fall behind.
“Vaya con dios.”

“Good-bye, thank you!” Jenny leaned out and watched for as long as she was able. The young mother was still waving to them as the train picked up speed and moved off the siding out onto the main track.

“Close the door.” The starman nodded once, leaned his weight against it until it shut tight. Their haven thus secured from curious eyes, Jenny turned to inspect their surroundings as she wrung water out of her hair.

The interior of the boxcar was dry. Except for a few boxes and crates it was also empty, which explained why the door had been left unlocked. Nothing to steal.